Five feared dead as rock slide crashes into block of flats

Published on Wednesday 26 March 2008 21:24

FIVE people were feared dead and 15 others were injured after a rock slide wrecked a six-storey block of flats in Norway yesterday.

The impact caused the lower floors of the building, which was less than five years old, to collapse. An ensuing fire ignited propane in a huge buried tank that police feared could explode.

Rescuers will not be able to enter the flats, which were built into a space blasted into a mountainside, until the propane burns out, which police said could take days.

The accident happened near the centre of Alesund, a coastal city about 220 miles north-west of Oslo.

Kjell Kvenseth, who was in charge of the rescue operation, said the fire was spreading to the upper floors, further increasing the risk that the entire structure would come down.

The collapse left the bottom floors a twisted mass of metal and concrete. Balconies were tilting and a tall glass entry-way was contorted by the impact, which witnesses said shoved the building three or four yards forward. "We first thought it was an earthquake," said Lars Aage Eldoey, who managed to escape with his wife from the top floor after the rock slide hit at about 3:30am. When he got out on to the balcony, he realised what had happened.

"There were enormous rocks – not just rocks. Half the hill had slid down into the bottom floors," he said.

A police spokesman said five residents of the apartments were unaccounted for. It was feared they were trapped under debris, with their odds of survival decreasing as the propane continued burning.

"We fear that the missing people are dead," Mr Kvenseth said.

A helicopter, rescue teams and search dogs from around the region were called to the scene – the Norwegian unit of the United Nations International Search and Rescue Advisory Group was also there.

About 40 homes and flats in a 350-yard radius of the building were evacuated.